Corrupted - An SAO Story
by Lojky
Summary: Well, this is just an unfinished thing that I started, might go back to it, but I figured that since I started it, I'd share it. A little darker than usual, but hey, what can I say? It's been a rough year, 2016... It's going to have short-ish chapters, about a thousand words each. I hope you enjoy, but don't get too attached, I'm notorious for not finishing stories.
1. Chapter 1

"Keita no! KEITA!" I look at the place where my friend stood moments before. He's gone. He's never coming back.

"Suicide, eh? Not the best way to go, but it's a form of murder, isn't it? Suicide, Homicide, Genocide, Insecticide… All have the same suffix."

I whip around, sword drawn, and launch myself at the twentysomething brown haired man standing behind me. He takes out a small axe and blocks my strike with it. We fly back when our weapons hit, a safezone notice popping up.

"I watched it all… It was quite interesting. You're higher level than they were, right? That's how you detected the trap chest… So did they know?" the man swings his axe back and forth. I remain silent. "I was tailing you to kill your guild you know… That's my mission. I was sent to wipe out what PoH referred to as an obsolete guild. It's my initiation. Try anything funny, and my partner will kill you. We're both level thirties! But I saw you, and thought, why not tail them through the whole dungeon? Let the weak ones or the strong one die. And that's what happened. So now to finish my initiation, I need to kill you. So come here!"

I don't know why, but I follow the insane man. What do I have to lose? Maybe losing the game will just log me out… I'll get to see Sachi and the gang again.

Then again, two level thirties? I'll regen faster than they could kill me… What a day…

I follow him all the way back to that trap room. Him and his friend stand on either side of the room. They draw their weapons, and apply poisons of some sort to their weapons.

"This'll be quick, black-cloaked kid," the twentysomething tells me. His partner is a red haired woman that seems to be about forty years old.

"It better. The poisons work for only a minute, so be quick," the woman tells him.

They both attack, and I have two debuffs. Paralysis, and anti-regen. I didn't account for the debuffing in my plan. And now I can't move or regen. Their attacks only do about 100 hp on average, meaning it'll take 95 hits to kill me. One hit a second, these effects last a minute. Looks like my plan will work.

A minute goes by. I'm almost in the red… But that's fine. I get up and draw my sword. The two attackers back up. I drink a potion, and go to the center of the room.

"Once every hour, chests refill in dungeons… Do you remember what is in this chest?" I open the chest. The two of them are standing near the openings for the trap, and I keep my inventory open. I drink a potion every time I'm hit, until the two of them are in the red.

"I'm so sorry! I just wanted to join Laughing Coffin! Help me! Please!" The man has tears running down his face. "HELP ME FOR GOD'S SAKE! DAMMIT I DON'T WANT TO-" With that, the man dies.

The woman lunges at me. Her cleaver is aimed at my neck, but I duck and push her over to the monsters. She stood no chance. I dispatch of the monsters minutes after, and turn the the door. That's when I feel a hand on my shoulder. I turn around, but no one is there.

"You are quite skilled…"

I stare at the air in front of me. I see nothing, even with my detection skill level.

"I honestly am glad you killed them. You're way better at that than they are. I mean, look at their initiation! They had almost all their work done, and couldn't kill one boy… Well, I guess it's about time I asked…" A black haired lady appears in front of me. She smiles and twirls a knife on her finger, "You want to join or die?"

So weeks went by, and I was initiated into Laughing Coffin.

My squad in the guild consisted of five members.

"LillyPetal" was our squad leader, and she had been in LC for a long time, almost since the guild's founding. LillyPetal was the one who tailed the guild initiated that I had killed. She was a dagger user, and her speed and attack stats was higher than almost any I had seen. She had beautiful long black hair, and was around 5' 2", and she was 24 years old.

But as beautiful as she was, she was terrifying. LillyPetal had killed more players than PoH himself, and many kills were unable to be detected by the server with the insane methods she used. Though killing, torture, and stalking were her biggest skills, and you might say they were her only skills. You wouldn't be wrong.

Our potion brewer was a thirteen year old boy named "Bluwolf247" He supplied potions and poisons of all kinds to our squad, and most of the guild too. He told me he was captured to be an experiment with ways to PK and torture, but ended up lending his alchemical aid to save himself and join the guild instead.

Bluwolf247 is really tall, at six foot two, and he's awkward as can be. He used a potion to change his eye and hair color, and changes them every week. This week, his frizzy hair is lime green and his eye color is red. He gets teased for looking like an evil tree, and I feel bad for the kid. 

The oldest of our squad is a thirty-two year old man named "WispofThunder". He's our strategist and the one who gives us our missions. You couldn't tell his age by looking at him, he looks really young. His short blond hair is as inviting as his baby face. He looks about twenty, and he's one of the most disturbing people I've ever met. He has thought of ways to torture people that even LillyPetal hadn't thought of, and they're ten times more brutal than anything she could dream of. But he's really good at predicting outcomes. That's seriously the only non-criminal upside I can think of…

Traps were handled by a sixteen year old girl named "FeltFang" Her specialty makes way for Lilly and I to take out opposition and targets. She looks way younger than she is, and that's mainly because of her short brown hair and her height. FeltFang's a bitter 4' 5" with the world's flattest chest. You didn't hear it from me though. I'd have to say, her best traps are ones she doesn't have to build. On multiple occasions, she's pretended to be a lost child, and lure targets to us. That's the advantage of her stature, I guess.

I was sent out on my first week with FeltFang to have us both initiated into the guild. She was to lure this guy, "xSaintFirex" to me in the forest and I was to kill him.

I stood on the rooftop above FeltFang. We nod at each other, and FeltFang goes up to xSaintFirex's house and knocks on the door. He steps out, and she says something to him. Whatever it was, xSaintFirex drew a knife and hollered into his house. FeltFang tugged him along to the forest, me following along by way of roof and tree.

When we get to the forest, FeltFang throws herself on SaintFire, and pins him to the ground, giggling. The two of them lay there, laughing. She looks up into the trees, stands up, and nods, right before she sprints into the woods. SaintFire looks around for her, hollering "Felt?! Felt?"

I jump down and strike the man three times. He pixelates.

"So, Felt? Where'd you go?" I yell into the forest.

Suddenly, FeltFang is at my side, holding a knife to my neck.

"Don't call me that. Call me FeltFang, or Fang. But Felt is a stupid name. Call me that again and I'll kill you, attractive as you may be."

I fall to my knees, and look at the ground in front of me. There used to be a man there. I killed another person… No… I killed another trapped victim. A soul confined to this hell. Well, they might as well go to the next. Fang glances at me, and she falls over too. The only difference between the two of us is that there were tears in her eyes.

I hold her hand, and we walk back to our new home. There's no going back now. There was never any going back. We've been changed. We've been corrupted.


	2. Chapter 2

My theory on it is that they're taking up space. Space that could be used to create skills. Space that could be used to create weapons. Space that's being wasted instead of getting us out of this hell hole.

So when I find out about an elitist PK guild, and get asked to join them out, what do you think I said? If all else fails, they can end up like my last guild. They can end up like Sachi.

Honestly, I killed people before finding out about Laughing Coffin. Only two people, but they said that was fine. They were their own members anyways...

Initiation into LC was what you would expect. Kill a target.

My first target was a user called "xSaintFirex" He had black hair, and was mid leveled. He ran independent detective service. They didn't tell me at the time, but I later learned they had me kill him because he had found the identity of the leader of our guild and had threatened to report him to the frontline guilds.

That was how I joined the guild. From then on, I was sent in group missions, usually to take out small parties, torture, or level.

Then there's me. My job is to be flexible. I can assassinate. I can be bait. I can torture. Man, can I torture! But mostly, I'm the one who they put on the squad to keep me from going crazy. The guild doesn't involve itself in mindless killing most of the time. There's almost always a reason we kill someone.

Today's reason to kill is to weaken the frontline guilds.

"Lilly! Wisp! How did we get stuck with the Knights?" Fang whines, spinning a dagger on her finger.

"Are you complaining? You get to plan the ambush… I get to play support with Healing Crystals…" Blu lays down on the couch in our squad's room. He tosses a potion to Lilly, who puts it in her inventory. "That's E-Paralysis Poison. Put it on your blade, and anything it touches in the next three seconds is-"

"Thanks. It'll help. But we're not taking on a whole ton of players. We're taking on two, and it's sleep PK's," Lilly smiles at me. "That means it'll be me and Kiri doing most of the killing."

I smile at Lilly as she licks her dagger. It's kinda gross, but she thinks she looks sexy doing it, and no one ever wants to object to the insane killer. "So, Wisp, what're you guys going to do?"

"Well Kirito, I'm glad you asked! The KoB headquarters is here. Lilly, your target is in the HQ, on floor 50. I'll be going as your backup. You're killing the treasurer, Kirito is killing the Vice Commander. She lives in an apartment on the 61st floor, and you're going to tail and kill her. Fang and Blu will wait for you on the roof, 100 meters away," Wisp smiles at the squad. "Everyone got it?"

"Yes sir!" Fang, Blu and I shout.

"Meet your squads at the location I send you to at 11:00 PM. This will be a night assassination," Wisp flicks his black cape at us and whispers "Teleport Home" and vanishes. He thinks it's pretty cool. We can all hear him though.

I sit down on the chair in the back of the room and cross my legs.

"Hey, Ki, what's wrong?" Fang leans over me somehow, probably because I'm sitting, and it makes her feel tall. "Why are you more glum than usual?"

She draws her knife and swings at me. I draw my sword, the Elucidator, and block her knife strikes. She swings, I parry, she swings, I parry. I lunge towards her, and she sidesteps. I fall to the ground, and she sits on top of me.

Fang strokes my hair and whispers in my ear, "Don't stress over it. You'll kill her no prob. Then you can go out with me to the park and we can pretend to be a couple."

"That's a lame date idea…" I grab her by the waist and throw her off of me. She falls onto the chair I had been sitting on earlier.

"Or… We could kill a few innocents on lower floors. Not kids, but maybe an orphanage owner… Or some Mom with a family?" Fang looks at me and winks.

"I concur," I smile at her. "But it's not a date…"

"Why not, Ki?"

"Hey, get a room!" Blu yells. "I'm still in here!"

Fang and I draw weapons and turn towards the thirteen year old boy.

"H-hey… I didn't mean it! I- I can go!" Blu stands up and runs from the room. Fang and I both sink onto the couch and try to fall asleep.

"Fang, you know, you're not as worthless as they want you to believe…" I smile and pull Fang close to me.

"Says the one who's good at everything… You could at least try to lie better, Ki," Fang looks up at me.

"Who said I'm good at everything? I'm the absence replacement. And if they want to double the work, guess who gets called. At least you have a specialty," I look into her green eyes and smile. "And I'd say I'm okay at lying! Remember killing that red haired lady? Rosatina?"

"Rosalia?" Fang smiles at me.

"That's the one. I totally lured her to an ambush. All by lying!" I curl Fang's hair with my index finger.

"Whatever you say… but I'll never amount to anything. Ki, I don't want to die here! I want to meet you in the real world! I want to go out on the streets of Tokyo and hold hands with you! This place would suck to die in…" Fang's eyes well up with tears.

Without thinking, I pull her close and kiss her.

"I won't let you die. We'll survive. Together."


End file.
